Amazon Invests Up to $4 Billion in AI Company Anthropic
Amazon Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has recently announced a strategic investment of up to $4 billion in Anthropic, an emerging AI company. This move by the e-commerce giant aims to tap into the potential of artificial intelligence across various applications within its business.
As part of this groundbreaking deal, Anthropic will utilize Amazon’s custom-designed chips to develop and deploy its AI software. Additionally, Amazon plans to integrate Anthropic’s cutting-edge technology into its extensive product portfolio.
Insider sources cited by The Wall Street Journal reveal that Amazon is initially investing $1.25 billion in Anthropic, with the possibility of increasing this amount to $4 billion based on certain conditions. Furthermore, Anthropic has committed to allocating a portion of this capital towards Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud infrastructure arm.
Shares of Amazon Inc. saw a 0.6% increase in premarket trading on Monday.
The AI Gold Rush Continues
Earlier this year, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google injected over $300 million into Anthropic. Salesforce Inc. (NASDAQ:CRM) has also been actively involved in funding AI startups, including Anthropic and Cohere, a competitor of OpenAI.
Anthropic, founded in 2021, stands out with its AI assistant called Claude, which directly competes with ChatGPT.
Led by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, both former OpenAI employees, Anthropic emphasizes the safety and reliability of its technology.
Amazon’s decision to become Anthropic’s primary cloud provider highlights the growing significance of cloud infrastructure in the AI ecosystem.
Despite the enthusiasm and investments in AI, it still represents only a fraction of the revenue generated by cloud-computing businesses. Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), for example, projected that two percentage points of its anticipated 26% quarterly revenue growth in its Azure business would come from AI services.
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